This YouMoz entry was submitted by one of our community members. The author’s views are entirely his or her own (excluding an unlikely case of hypnosis) and may not reflect the views of Moz.

I am getting constantly frustrated with bad SEO not necessarily pure black hat, but bad linking and bad habits. It also seems like it’s not just me. I would not be getting frustrated if it did not get you results but it does, lets prove that and see which search engines are the worst for it.

So I have devised a test, using SEOmoz tools and Blind Search to compare the first place results of Yahoo, Bing and Google and to see what methods these websites used to rank to the top for a select keyword phrase. To add more complexity I am going to be searching for SEO companies and also reviewing their work on client’s websites.

I will not be revealing the identity of these companies, the keyword phrase I will use is “SEO Company *Random Location*” the location is the same for each result and is a large city. 53% is the keyword difficulty score SEOmoz gives the keyword I have selected.

I will be using my own analysis methods with my eyes and using MozBar (PRO), Open Site Explorer (PRO) and Search Engine Operator tags when needed.

These are the settings I am using for OSE:

Then I will use MozBar to count up total links and links from root domains.

Let’s get started:

Site 1 / Result 1 / Search Engine 1

Quick Analysis

Title tags have slight cannibalization issues and the domain is a relevant keyword domain with an .org.uk domain. On the bright side, they seem to do a bit of original blogging (nothing interesting though) I think this company’s problem is they think they know good SEO when they truly don’t.

Inbound Link Analysis

Most the links are from comment spamming and bad directory submissions, generally using custom anchors but some are using the owner’s name. And the comments are something like “oh I really like your post I will bookmark this”.

Client Analysis

Using pretty much exactly the same method, as they use for their own website.

Method Employed for 1st Rank

Comment Spamming

Bad Directories

Keyword Domain

Total Root Domain Links from different root domains: 55

Total Links: 9,576

SPAMNESS: 7/10

Site 2 / Result 1 / Search Engine 2

Quick Analysis

Title tag has extreme keyword stuffing with extreme keyword cannibalization throughout, company also lies about companies it’s worked with listing some of the largest companies in the world. Nice bit of footer keyword stuffing as well. Not to worry though as they say “GUARENTEED FIRST PLACE RESULTS” I would love them to teach me how.

Inbound Link Analysis

They are getting links from their client’s websites, plus a few bad directories. Doesn’t sound so bad does it?

Client Analysis

The client’s websites are pretty much riddled with the same bad SEO practices that the company has on their website the only difference is within the footer. They place their “LINK EXCHANGE PROGRAM” on the footer and the company links to itself about 5 times or more with different anchor text then links to its others client’s websites as well in a big free for all.

Method Employed for 1st Rank

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword .com Domain

Footer anchors from clients websites

Few Directories

Total Root Domain Links from different root domains: 22

Total Links: 247

SPAMNESS: 10/10

Site 3 / Result 1 / Search Engine 3

Quick Analysis

Keyword stuffing throughout the website in all available places, the footer is STUFFTASTIC they have loads of services pages most of them are the same service but are targeting different keywords the BOLD tag is definitely one of their favourites. For some reason they link to the local government website I guess this makes them official?

Inbound Link Analysis

Due to having so few links, I combined OSE with Yahoo, Bing and Yahoo operator tags to see if any of this made any sense? Ranking top spot for a relatively good keyword with 8 root links is pretty amazing. The links that linked to this company where just random links from, keyword stuffed pages and some bad directories.

Client Analysis

Unfortunately, I cannot find any of their clients as they do not list them on the website or get inbound links from them.

Method Employed for 1st Rank

Keyword Stuffing

Dodgy Websites Links

Bad Directories

Total Root Domain Links from different root domains: 8

Total Links: 1,350

SPAMNESS: 9/10

Results (In order of SPAMNESS):

Site 2 = Yahoo!

Site 3 = Bing

Site 1 = Google

I guess results are pretty much as expected but even so it is worrying that all the top 3 websites are dodgy companies employing dodgy practices.

So where did the reputable companies appear?

Yahoo! = 6th

Bing = 7th

Google = 5th

(All different companies)

My Thoughts

Things obviously need to be changed, “good” SEO tactics are ranking lower than spam tactics this is especially true in less competitive keyword phrases such as the one I have used in this test.

If you want to perform these tests yourself feel free to do so and message me the results and we can compile them all together. Obviously this test can be done on any type of website I just choose SEO companies as it would be relevant.

It's all about risk. If you/your client want to take on the risk of link spam, go for it.

To quote John Andrews in this article (which has really changed my outlook on SEO)

"If you elect to believe in the Almighty Google and subscribe to a “White Hat SEO” philosophy, that’s your choice. You choose to believe what you are told, and follow the guidelines. But you should be prepared to eat White Hat SEO meals at White Hat SEO restaurants. Don’t complain when the menu is limited to stale bread and off-color water.

Don’t point at your more successful (and probably spammier) peers dining at Nobu and suggest life isn’t fair, they aren’t “real SEOs” or lament the fact that Google hasn’t caught them yet.

[...]

In fact, I’d be disappointed in the Dad who chose to remain “ethical” and poor while his kids starved, and I think you should be too. We live in a real world, and real world guidelines take priority over Google’s guidelines."

If you're willing to take on the risk of black/grayhat, and as long as you're upfront with your clients about it, you aren't being "unethical." You're giving the client what they want. While the SEO community is great, the SEO community generally won't pay your bills. If you have to choose between food on your plate and the approval of some strangers, I hope you go with the food.

If you know how to game the system but choose not to do so out of fear or social pressure...what makes you think you really deserve that #1 slot?

What risk? Unless you're doing straight blackhat automation on a massive scale, there's not nearly as much risk as Google wants you to think. Certainly, there's no risk involved with spammy comments or crappy directories.

Its not RISKY in the sense that you might get penalized for it. Least not if the links are on the other sites and not yours, but those sites can be penalized and all your hard work might go down the drain. "might"

That's my point exactly. Think and try for yourself. This is exactly why I'm running experiments. There does exist some degree of risk simply by the fact that sites have been deindexed in the past, but you have to take time to get data and find that limit. If no "penalty risk", bare minimum there is a time risk.

Ok well lets do some tests then. Lets set up a spam something or other company obviously the website will state it as that and use blackhat and bad directories automated stuff etc and see if we can report it and get it banned?

Let's talk about results here, rather than process, which I think "the American way of life" is all about. My question is: what improvements in SERP rankings have "good SEO" companies gotten? I'd like to see some SEO pros boasting about their achievements. Like site ZZZ was ranking at n position at date d and in x days and {T,...,...} strategies (list them, be brave) I got them to 1st place or 1st page.

That is what I'd like to see, not "mum, he's better than me" whining. Then I'd really learn something.

Got to admit that there are a lot of spammy SEO sites in the SERP's but thats bound to happen. I'm not too concerned about the fact that there are spammy companies above mine for certain terms, personally I get most of my business through word of mouth, with only a small perecentage of converting clients through my website (for monthly seo services)

I guess its more concern for smaller businesses, who take on SEO for themselfs if there is a competitor using these tactics they have very little chance to rank top for certain terms without using similar tactics. Which is why these methods NEED to be neutralized by search engines.

But think about how much faster your business would be growing if it were higher in the search engines and received the traffic that the spam sites currently do. That's the thing - they're getting trraffic that should rightfully be yours, helping to improve the number of aquisition channels working for you.

I agree that there are a ton of sites that use spammy tactics and succeed in rankings above more "white-hat" sites. At the same time, the whole white/grey/black hat labeling system is very subjective. In the end it's your opinion if a footer link on your client's site is less "spammy" than a purchased footer link on a site that's not your client. To a SE, there's no difference.

Well really, this is bad that the bad websites are ranked higher. But let's take an example I did for one of my clients:

- the site was about adventure tourism in specific region

- he was ranked for top 3 kws on: position 5, position 4, position 35

- I used the following tactics: asked him to link to his "natural linking partners" - local tourism sites, local tourism agencies to strenghten the domain and gain some domain authority, he got some 40 or 50 links; after that I placed him in 20-30 general and 20-30 topical directories with mixture of 10 anchor texts (mostly with those 3 in mind + brand name); I placed 10-20 forum and blog comments

- also opened youtube profile and linked to his youtube videos

- after 2 months he ranked for position 1, position 1 and position 2 for these top 3 keywords

I would guess not "SPAM" but obviously directories are generally pretty rubbish, and really why should directories give link juice (I have written a post about this but its in the queue still).

We do not know if directories will always give link juice, so although that's not a SPAM way of doing things it is also is not guaranteed "forever" but then nothings is but getting links naturally by having quality content is generally the safest way.

But a simple answer what you did was NOT spamming. But I am sure you would know that anyway :)

Well yes, this is pretty much the white-hat technique, but then again, why would not quality directories pass value (link-juice). Example: chamber of commerce directory, local directory for travel agencies, directory of niche-specific conferences? Why not?

General opinion and attitude towards directories was built on a premise of Indian-spamming companies that built these directories to sell SEO services / spam the hell out. And these should be deleted forever IMHO.

But also, commenting on the topically relevant forums and blogs? Why would that be a bad technique? I would dare to say that one visitor from that website could mean more for my traffic than whole bunch of other "google visits" who in my opinion sometimes only browse (I saw great engagement from blog comment visitors). Also these visits tend to become natural links (if visited by other bloggers).

So... natural link profile is in my opinion the best way to gain rankings, and things you described are clearly done for non-competitive niches/keywords because, it would be much harder for short-tail, competitive keywords.

It's not a "bad technique" but obviously everything is opinion, but really logically why does that qualify any website to "gain a vote"? As anyone could freely comment anywhere. I think if you using this as a strategy you should safeguard yourself by using better practises, also at the same time a good mix of everything is needed if your going for a smaller scale or budget of SEO. But also think of time, 1000 easy links might give you less rank than 1 link from a authority website, and if algorithms changed to not allow this practise then all that time gaining 1000 links would be wasted.

Looking at the AsOne design link profile, it seems your strongest links come from footer links of your clients. That's fine, but those links in no way reflect upon the quality of your content. Algorithmically speaking, what makes them different from a spammy link? It's an inbound link from a non-related site (unless you're in the business of making websites for web designers). The quantity of outbound links on that site may not be significant, but not every spammy link is from a link farm.

Yep your right. But they do reflect the quality of our work that we are proud of, most web design companies do, do this and the only reason we have 200 links from our clients is because we have been designing websites for a long time and if someone likes the site and wants one thats why they are there for if we wanted them for SEO purposes they would all be custom anchor texts but most of them just say our company name. Most of our sales come from word of mouth, not from online leads.There are some companies in the same industry out there with 200 links from random places and with alot design companies this is how they get their links.

My company only started doing SEO when I joined (very recently) and I can assure you soon most our new links will be coming from quality sources and thats why we will rank for keywords not because we are linked from our clients websites.

Do you do that to yours? We have 300+ websites online some of them very old so would i waste my time firstly changing all that and secondly I dont think its a SPAM tactic or unehtical and I dont believe anyone else would either. My only problem is when bad companies of any kind not just in our industry can beat other companies that are genuinely good.

Im not a SEO Jesus, nor do I say I am. All I am saying is that directory submissions etc are not forever and that there are better ways. I am sure a properly ethical company like Distilled would never suggest these practises, and I don't either.

Well I asked if Google is capable of differentiating between an irrelevant footer link and a spam link. A link might look more "in place" or "prettier" to us, but can Google tell the difference? That's all I'm asking.

I guess it cant at the moment. But I am sure they can. They make a car drive itself and do all the other innovating they do how hard can that be. Footer text is argubly slighltly discounted anyway due to where it is placed, but i guess a site with a nav a few links and a footer looks very different to a bot than a site FULL of links to totally different websites on every single page.

While you're producing the so-called "quality content" and struggling with all the white-hat natural linkbuilding strategies, your competitors just pay to place their link on a trusted link farm with some "black hat seo agency" and you loose.

That's how it works :(

PS: thanks for the post, now I see that I'm not the only one loosing faith in white hat :)

Search engines are fighting SPAM seo tactics (yes they are not doing well today),and many seos (including me) once fascinated in those spam tactics are shifting to pure white hat (and proved successful and long term).

Given such a situation,you are loosing faith in white hat (and going to black/grey)?

It really does suck that it works like this. The big problem most of the time is the cost involved with doing the work. We build both high quality links for some of our larger clients, and blog network and article distributions for smaller clients. The push style links are the only real way we can help the smaller clients, other wise they end up with two or three quality links a month but no domain diversity for 7 or 8 months. One thing I have found to work exceptionally well lately is to combine the domain diversity volume of article direcs, PR release, blog networks, and a few paid links, with the quality and authority of some high quality linking efforts.

One thing that has always pissed me of is the exact-match-keyword.com domains. You can link your ass off, and they can do a forum signature spam run for 50 bucks and your F**ked. I would really like to see Google change this part of the algorythm. Now that they are taking a much closer look at local search as their new area for growth revenues, they will address this I HOPE :(

How many "good sites" allow you to target anchor text so specifically though? There are some strong directories out there (article and otherwise) but other than these types of sites, and guest blogging, I don't know that it's easy to get anchor text optimized links. They may work, but are they "good"?

So the problem I suppose is the algorithm. Why does Google view mediocre sites, or directories with nothing to offer, as "good"?

Exactly. I further go into this in another blog post I put up for submission funnily enough before I put this one up! Genuine anchor texts are usually like "click here" or "SeoMOZ.org". The only way around this I guess is by having a keyword domain: awsumz-seo-toolz.org

There are many instances where I don't even see the value in spamming. So what if a site ranks higher then yours in search. If their SEO is employing black hat techniques, posting spammy links, overbolding and stuffing their site with keywords, it is pretty obvious from a searcher's point of view. They may get 1000 visitors a day, but the 999 of them that bounce off the site in search of an authentic experience with valuable, readable content and quality services will find what they are in search of. Get the quality of traffic, not the quantity of surfers.

I would rather look like a legitimate organization than rank #1. Im just saying...

Well thing is sometimes, the average person can't tell. For example, recently a few of our clients, their friends and people in our area have all been scammed by a terrible company but they all thought it was great before they actually started work. There not really "black hat" more like no hat at all. Haha

Point is many websites can get to the top with bad habits which aren't considered "black hat" (link directories/commenting) and they might not be bad companies but they aren't really using a fair method its a shame that it actually works though. But when it doesn't people would be forced to provide more relevant better content.

There's absolutely no correlation with the fugliness of a link profile and the aesthetic appeal of a website. A website that's professionally designed and implements compelling web copy will convert regardless of their 2000 links from super-seo-link-list.com.